User-Centered Agile Method

Agile development methods began to emerge around 20 years ago.
However, it was not until the early 2000s that they began to be
widely used in industry. This growth was often due to the advent of
Internet services requiring faster cycles of development in order
to heighten the rate at which an ever-greater number of
functionalities were made available. In parallel, user-centered
design (UCD) methods were also becoming more and more widely used:
hence, user-centered design and agile methods were bound to cross
paths, at least in the telecoms industry! During this period, in
the field of telecommunications, the explosion in the number of
connected terminals, Web applications, new use environments
(particularly in a domestic setting), etc., meant it was crucial to
gain a fuller understanding of users’ requirements and better
evaluate the relevance and acceptance of services’ attempts
to cater for these requirements. Thus the user-centered agile
method, as proposed in this book, aims to mutually integrate two
existing methods: user-centered design – as used by
ergonomists – and the agile Scrum method – as used by
developers. The user testing method is also covered. Analyzing work
on this subject spanning the past 10 years, the authors also
provide an assessment of the feedback on the user-centered agile
method. The method described in this book has been based on all
these sources. It is a framework relying on the logic introduced by
Scrum, i.e. a framework based on project management. The method
proposed is seen as an extension of Scrum which is “centered
on humans” because of the integration of user-centered design
and user-testing. Therefore the description of the user-centered
agile method is based on the basics of the agile Scrum method and
uses its terminology and elements. As well as descriptive elements
of the user-centered agile method, practical examples of how to
implement it are also provided.

Dominique Deuff worked at the National Institute of Informatics
in Japan for 2½ years before coming back to France in June
2006 and joining Orange Labs France Telecom as a developer in a
Scrum team. In 2008, she graduated with a Master’s degree in
ergonomics and has since then been applying her new skills to
various projects at Orange Labs Lannion.
Mathilde Cosquer joined Orange Labs as an ergonomist after
completing her PhD on the question of transparency of technical
devices from the user’s point of view. She has taken part in
the design and evaluation of numerous innovating services, but over
the past four years, she has been more particularly involved in
projects of interpersonal communication services.

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